Thanks for your thoughts, Tore. We originally chose the ZLinux platform for that very reason (licensing for DB2). But your estimate of being half the cost of server don't hold up for a memcache/Redis server.
There are no software license costs since everything we use is open source and even included in the stock ubuntu server distribution. But I always download and build the newest Redis and memcache versions, so it takes me a couple of hours to load and configure a machine. After that, they run for years. My memcache server has been running continuously since August 2009 except when I had to bring it down to move it physically. I have a hot backup that I bring on line by changing the ip address. I also made a disk copy so I can just boot from the other disk if the boot disk burns out. Since it is a cache, all the applications will still function if there's an outage- just slower. With memcache, I could run both machines as long as all apps use a consistent hashing algorithm for determing which currently online server to write to/read from. With our current configuration, this hardware is free, since it consists of old machines that were going to be thrown out anyway because they weren't good enough for Windows-7. So in this sense, you're right: the HW cost is quite below 20% :) The only other cost is the electricity. A new server with 256 GB memory costs about $12500 on our market. Still no SW license costs and about the same number of man-hours to put it into service. Considering what they pay me, it's a no-brainer. Mvh./Best Regards Roger Evans, Autodata Norge A/S http://www.autodata.no +47 93 25 92 36 On Tue, 2012-10-30 at 14:22 +0100, Agblad Tore wrote: > You should do the total cost calculation first. > We usually discover that about half the total cost of a server is > manhours, then there is software(licenses) and monitoring backup > and such things. Cost left for hardware always below 20%, sometimes > quite below. > And surprisingly the x86 platform doesen't differ much from this. > Normally cheaper hardware, but more software licenses due to more cpucores. > So in total it's more to choose the right application/load > for each platform. > > And ask t Z-guy if he by 'free capacity' means you can have it for free > or with a discount :-) > > ________________________________________________ > Tore Agblad > System programmer, Volvo IT certified IT Architect > Volvo Information Technology > IMO Mainframe Databases & zOpen Gothenburg > Dept. DE56430 > SE-405 08, Gothenburg Sweden > Telephone: +46-31-3233569 > E-mail: [email protected] > http://www.volvo.com/volvoit/global/en-gb/ > > -----Original Message----- > From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alan Cox > Sent: den 30 oktober 2012 11:42 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Hurricane webserver > > On Tue, 30 Oct 2012 11:01:59 +0200 > Roger Evans <[email protected]> wrote: > > > We are in the process of moving an apache webserver with windows to > > nginx on zLinux. > > > > We use Redis and Memcached already on intel castoff machines. > > Management is uncomfortable with this situation and wants us to get > > everything on 24/7 supported hardware. My plan was to buy a 1-u intel > > server with lots of memory and put both there. But our Z enthusiast > > says we can put Redis and memcache on Z-Linux (under VM) without any > > loss of functionality or performance (because we have extra capacity and > > "paging on Z doesn't cost anything"). > > The idea of memcached is to use vast quantities of cheap PC memory to > reduce latency to the very minimum. Putting it on Z seems bizarre given > its got fast I/O and very very expensive memory which are exactly what > memcached is not designed for. > > I'd have thought a pair of PC class boxes with ECC RAM would be a better > fit. > > Alan > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For more information on Linux on System z, visit > http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For more information on Linux on System z, visit > http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
